lies, had persisted even after Max and Eleanor were born. Hadn't the Brazilian hammock as diaper table been an in- spired idea? And the poster of Beck gaz- ing down over the crib, covering the hole in the wall? Kendall had never wanted to live like his parents. That had been the whole idea, the lofty rationale behind the snow- globe collection and the flea-market eye- wear. But as the children got older, Ken- dall began to compare their childhood unfavorably with his own, and to feel guilty. From the street, as he approached under the dark, dripping trees, his house looked impressive enough. The lawn was ample. Two stone urns flanked the front steps, leading up to a wide porch. Except for paint peeling under the eaves, the exterior looked fine. It was with the interior that the trouble began. In fact, the trouble began with the word itself interior. Stephanie liked to use it. The design magazines she consulted were full of it. One was even called it: Inte- riors. But Kendall had his doubts as to whether their home achieved an au- thentic state of interiority. For instance, the outside was always breaking in. Rain leaked through the master-bathroom ceiling. The sewers flooded up through the basement drain. Across the street, a Range Rover was double-parked, its tailpipe fuming. As he passed, Kendall gave the person at the wheel a dirty look. He expected a businessman or a stylish suburban wife. But sitting in the front seat was a frumpy, middle-aged woman, wearing a Wisconsin sweatshirt, talking on her cell phone. Kendalfs hatred of S.D.V.s didn't keep him from knowing the base price of a Range Rover: seventy-five thou- sand dollars. From the official Range Rover Web site, where a husband up late at night could build his own vehi- cle, Kendall also knew that choosing the "Luxury Package" (preferably cashmere upholstery with navy piping and burled- walnut dash) brought the price tag up to eighty-two thousand dollars. This was an unthinkable, a testicle-withering sum. And yet, pulling into the driveway next to Kendalf s was another Range Rover, this belonging to his neighbor Bill Ferret. Bill did something relating to software; he devised it, or marketed it. At a back-yard barbecue the previ- ous summer, Kendall had listened with a serious face as Bill explained his pro- fession. Kendall specialized in a seri- 0us face. This was the face he'd trained on his high-school and college teachers from his seat in the first row: the ever- alert, A-student face. Still, despite his apparent attentiveness, Kendall didn't remember what Bill had told him about his job. There was a software company in Canada named Waxman, and Bill had shares in Waxman, or Waxman had shares in Bill's company, Duplicate, and either Waxman or Duplicate was thinking of "going public," which ap- parently was a good thing to do, except that Bill had just started a third software company, Triplicate, and so Waxman, or Duplicate, or maybe both, had forced him to sign a "non-compete," which would last a year. Munching his hamburger, Ken- dall had understood that this was how people spoke, out in the world-in the real world he himself lived in, though, paradoxically, had yet to enter. In this real world, there were things like cus- tom software and ownership percent- ages and Machiavellian corporate strug- gles, all of which resulted in the ability to ('(\,,-cf\f'- r" ,.r-J" kLv L-v....___ -. I //"'" . {(,(;III '/'_, IF' drive a heartbreakingly beautiful forest- green Range Rover up your own paved drive. Maybe Kendall wasn't so smart. He went up his front walk and into the house, where he found Stephanie in the kitchen, next to the open, glow- ing stove. " D ' d " h - d " I ' 1 on t get ma , s e sat. t s on y been on a few minutes." Stephanie wore her hair in the same comp-lit pageboy she'd had the day they met, twenty-two years earlier, in an H.D. seminar. In college, Kendall had had a troubling habit of falling in love with lesbians. So imagine his relief: his utter joy, when he learned that Steph- anie wasn't a lesbian but only looked like one. Shèd dumped the day's mail on the kitchen table and was flipping through an architecture magazine. "How's this for our kitchen?" Stepha- rue said. Kendall bent to look. It didn't cost anything to look. An old house, like theirs, had been expanded by ripping off the rear wall and replacing it with a Bau- haus extension. Kendall asked, 'Where are the kids?" "Max is at Sam's," Stephanie said. / ( II! /" .I' I ,. 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